An animated tapestry of everyday stories, Sharmila Biswas’s latest choreographic work, Manodarpan, has emerged from the intense quiet of the pandemic to delve into the very core of rasa. With the fresh energy of a questioning intellect, it boldly strides away from the standard trope of exploring the epics and mythology to investigate emotions. It works with the conflicts of the quotidian to establish the nine rasas, cleverly using the dance-theatre format.
The dancers do not play roles. Instead, they transform themselves into personifications of emotions. In this complex work, Biswas makes enquiries into the very nature of dance, raising a fundamental question: does the dancer, like an actor, play a role or does she, in the course of the performance, transform herself into the feeling that she is portraying? Is it her job to merely represent or does she work towards a deeper purpose of embodying the spirit of an emotion in its most distilled form?
Dance becomes an end in itself in Manodarpan. It is not the means to tell a story that needs to be interpreted. A connection is automatically forged between dancing and viewing bodies when the performers allow themselves to be the universal human emotions in order to visibilise them. It is perhaps the choreographer’s most experimental work yet, where she takes her powerful classical technique and abhinaya into uncharted terrains to present a new lens through which to look at dance.
Dense textures are created by the extraordinarily dynamic use of space — both on stage and off it. The dancers spill out into extensions of the stage and even make incursions into the auditorium. They get their moments in solos, duets and group dances, and effortlessly execute complex choreographic patterns. The high production values associated with Biswas’s work remain intact, drawing much power from the strikingly evocative music. The young Raaginni Hindocha makes a mark alongside seasoned dancers like Monami Nandy, Shashwati Garai Ghosh, Subhajit Das and others, although there is no departure from the maturity of classical restraint.
